Development and use of an instrument for assessing the department-level work environment: The department-level environment questionnaire (DLEQ)

There has been little research into the work environments of teachers at the subject department level. Understanding and investigating the work environment at this level could provide insight into the type of work environment that might lead teachers to remain in the teaching profession. This article reports the development, validation and use of a work environment instrument at the subject department level. The department-level environment questionnaire (DLEQ) was developed using the school-level environment questionnaire as the parent instrument. Both Actual and Preferred Forms of the DLEQ were used. Early-career secondary school science teachers’ perceptions of the actual and preferred science department environment in New Zealand were sought. In addition, interviews with 17 % of the participants were conducted in order to find out why the teachers answered the questionnaire in the way that they did. The findings highlight the needs of this particular group of teachers. Future research opportunities for further instrument development and use of the instrument are suggested.     

Teachers' Images of their Schools and Perceptions of their Work Environments

The Images of Schools through Metaphor (ISM) was developed as a simple, economical questionnaire to allow school leaders and researchers to survey teachers' images of their school. The article describes briefly aspects of the development and validation of this questionnaire and its application in an investigation of relationships between teachers' images of their schools and their perceptions of its work environment as assessed by the School Level Environment Questionnaire (SLEQ). The sample used consisted of 162 teachers in 48 schools in Tasmania, Australia, each of whom completed both the ISM and the SLEQ. The various results revealed were generally of considerable statistical significance indicating a strong relationship between the images teachers have of their school and the perceptions they have of its work environment.     

Accounting for Variation in Science and Mathematics Achievement: A Multilevel Analysis of Australian Data Third International Mathematics and Science Study (Timss)

One of the most consistent themes evident in the literature dealing with rural education is that of rural disadvantage. Much research and literature indicates that students from rural schools receive an education that is inferior to that of students from larger urban or suburban schools. Of the matrix of factors reported to lead to that disadvantage, geographical isolation and the extent to which it restricts access is reported to result in rural schools not having the same standard of resource allocation as urban schools where access is not a problem. This study addresses the issue of resource availability in rural and urban Australian schools and includes the variables: students' attitudes towards science and mathematics and career aspirations of these students. The analysis includes socioeconomic status and gender of these students and investigates how these variables relate to student achievement. Do students in rural schools have the same educational opportunity as students in urban schools? In this study a multilevel model is used which takes into account the classroom level variance in student achievement as well as individual variance and school level variance.     

Keyboarding as general education: post-school employment and earnings effects

This study reports on the post-school attainment effects of offering courses in typing and keyboarding as part of general education. The analysis was designed to develop models to analyse the effects of keyboarding on employment, earnings, further educational attainment and related distributional and cost-effectiveness issues. We assess these models empirically using national survey data from the federal government's High School and Beyond data set. Results indicate significant positive ramifications on all aspects cited above.     

The performance of college students on piaget-type tasks dealing with distance,time, and speed

Research was done to probe and extend Piaget's theory of the conception of speed. Specifically tested was the hypothesis that there is no hierarchical relationship in performance on the following Piaget-type tasks: conservation of distance, asymmetric series of speeds, one-to-many (circular) speeds, symmetric speeds, time, and proportional reasoning. The research also tested the gender-related performance on these six tasks. One hundred freshman and sophomore college students were shown demonstrations of equipment individually for each of the six tasks. A set of open-ended questions based on the demonstrations was administered to each subject in a 45-minute interview. Subjects were scored as “pass” on a given task if they manipulated objects in certain ways and gave specific types of explanations. A scalogram analysis of the data yielded a z-score of — 3.7 which indicated that subjects passed the task in a certain sequence. The tasks were found to form a unidimensional scale and to be increasingly difficult in the order listed above. A chi-square test for two independent samples showed a significant difference (alpha = 0.05) in performance between males and females on all speed tasks. No significant differences in performance between males and females were found for the distance and time tasks.     

Development,Validation and Application of a Malay Translation of an Elementary Version of the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction

An elementary version of the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) and a scale for determining students' Enjoyment of their Science Lessons (ENJ) were translated into Standard Malay. This process, together with its initial validation carried out in 136 classrooms with 3,104 students, is described in this paper. Statistical analyses revealed that data from this Malay version of the QTI with these Malay-speaking elementary school students in Brunei are indeed valid and reliable. Associations between students' perceptions of their teachers' interpersonal behaviours and their end-of-year results on an external science examination were investigated. Students' perceptions of cooperative behaviours were positively correlated, while submissive behaviours were negatively correlated with their cognitive achievement. Cross-national comparisons were made between students' perceptions of teachers' classroom interaction and similar studies in Singapore, Australia, and Korea.